Iridescent Dreaming
by corkchop
Summary: Iridescent—showing luminous colors that seem to change when seen from different angles. /entrant for the non-cliché contest...


He keeps trying to move his legs, but it feels as if he had been in chill water for much too long and it had paralyzed them. Wind whistled behind him and blotted out his pleading.

There was a girl there, too. She was depressingly beautiful—nobody noticed it at school, but the proof was before his eyes. It was so cliché; the girl with the shattered background. Seemingly plain, maybe, but then it struck him that she was lovely without effort.

_I wanted to fall in love with someone normal_, the boy thinks. _But she is just like a fairytale! _

Despair speeds through his veins like quicksilver. But he still loves her, because if even if she has the smallest trace of fondness left for him, he will still be smitten with her. Reaching out, he cranes his hands out as far as they can go toward her and mouths something to her. It is probably "I love you". But a gust of wind greedily snatches the stolen words away. Maybe it has a collection.

He breaks his locked gaze for the first time in decades. Peering around, he realizes there are other boys around him. They are all looking beseechingly at the girl. They whisper her name like it is sacred, tasting each syllable and repeating it over and over again.

When the lovely girl twirls around to look at her admirers, his attention snaps to her and only her. Her eyes, her eyes, have that rich ocher that makes the stars look like they are not shining. Her teeth are pearls and her cascades the right way without her even trying. She is flawless.

She beams and saunters her way through the throng of admiring boys, and they form a path through them curiously like Moses parted the red sea. They all look like her like she is a thousand twinkling diamonds.

"I will give you chocolates shaped like hearts," one calls out.

Another says, "When you are cold after a walk on the beach, I'll give you my jacket."

She just continues wily smiling at them. From time to time she would stop and look at one of the boys, carefully scrutinizing them. But she would always toss her head and move on.

He waits eagerly for his turn. Maybe, this time, she would pick him.

She comes and his heart skips a beat. She pauses and looks at him critically, from his toes to the hair on his crown. Her eyes flash black, the shade lightning would be if that color. He grins his best smile, and his eyes light up. After a long moment, she nods knowingly and says, "follow".

Everyone around him groans in disappointment. Today, they would not get to be loved by her. Maybe tomorrow if they were lucky.

She smiles, she beams, and then she laces her fingers with his. "I've chosen you," she murmurs, "At least for today, my heart thinks."

She laughs like Santa's tinkling sleigh bells, and it sounds gay and innocent. He wonders what she means vaguely. A spark inside of his flares up to ask what she means by "at least for today". As he gathers the courage, and opens his mouth to ask, she silences him instantly.

"I love you, forever and always," she whispers into his ear.

She takes his hand and pulls him along like a horse on a lead. He follows her more than willingly. Any rebellious thoughts have vanished. As time passes, the wind softens till it is nothing but a trickling cool breeze. The sun melts into the ground and the willow trees become black silhouettes against the darkening sky. The boy and the girl walk peacefully into the sunset. The boy is overjoyed, once again. He was chosen at last. He is temporarily content.

But, for the next night and the next forever, this striking girl will play the game of loving a different boy for a single day and night until her heart selects someone else. This boy will be never adored by her again after tonight. This heartbreaking cycle will play again and again, until her death day. Boys will love her and receive nothing in return.

It is not her fault. She was raised without proper love; she is unable to express this most powerful emotion. It is her curse for the rest of her life.

Flying above, ravens circle and circle cawing and their oily black feathers are almost purple. Their cries almost sound like a single croaking human word.

Player.

(!)

The Cahill teenage boy blinks awake. Literally seconds after rubbing the sleep from his eyes and allowing the sunlight to leach his drowsiness away, his phone trills an upbeat melody. He answers the call.

"Uhrg, hello?"

A perky female voice answers sweetly, "Hi! What's up?"

"I just got up. So, nothing much."

"Awesome! Well anyways, I was wondering if you wanted to catch a movie today."

"Don't you have a close guy friend already?"

"Oh gosh, no. We already broke up. He is such a loser."

He had a sensation of déjà vu. What had he dreamed about, again? Something about a girl who said she loved him. But there were guys in that dream too; lots and lots of them. And they liked her a lot too.

"Are you sure you guys broke up?" he questioned suspiciously.

"Um, yeah. We totally hate each other's guts now! He said he saw me kiss two other guys in a row." the girl on the phone giggled. It was funny; he used to like that laugh. But now it seemed more annoying than sweet.

"Hold on a sec. I need to check my calendar." He flipped through his calendar, and noticed he did not have anything planned for today.

"Sorry, I'm all booked. For the whole week, actually," he lied.

"Aww! Maybe you can cancel something?"

"Definitely not, I can't let down my buddies."

"Okay," she did not seem too disappointed, he noticed. Not a trace of unhappiness. "Later."

He blinked. This was the girl he loved, the one he regarded as perfect. So, why did he feel so eerily light and happy?

The world was filled with so many mysteries. This was just one of them.

* * *

**AN: **I finished it! I just can't believe it. And I actually managed to make the word limit, not including this author's note. Just the raw story stuff. O_O

Just for any confusion cleared up, the vague "he" and "she" thing was there so that you could insert any female and male character into those slots. They can be related to each other as a brother and sister, or a lover and another character; For instance, Amy and Dan or Ian and Amy.

This is also an entrant for bluester007's Anti-Cliché contest. Well, I hope everyone else manages to scrape something together! I'm so terrified—this is the first official contest I've entered on the 39 Clues archive in months. Thanks for reading, all. (:

Cheers and all that,

Emily – logged on (corkchop)


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